Book I

, 91.) The present article we suppose is the _Cancer Squilla_, L. It is treated of very cursorily by the other authorities.

Καρκίνος,

Cancer, _Crab_; of the ashes of burnt crabs, that of river-crabs is equally desiccative with those of the sea urchins and cockles. By the peculiarity of its whole substance it proves wonderfully efficacious when applied to persons bitten by mad dogs, as mentioned in another place. The ashes of the sea-crabs being extremely desiccative, do not indeed agree with them, but rather relieve those who stand in need of desiccative remedies. The river-crab when pulverised and applied, ejects thorns and the points of darts.

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COMMENTARY. The _Cancer Pagurus_, a large edible crab, would appear to be the sea animal treated of under this head. The river-crab, we suppose, is the _Astacus fluviatilis_, or crawfish. Dioscorides recommends the ashes of the river-crab most especially in hydrophobia, and as an application to fissures in the feet and anus, chilblains, and cancers, and also as an antidote to the bites of venomous animals. Galen also gives an interesting account of the use of them in hydrophobia, and Serapion repeats Galen’s account of them. See further,